The Moral Responsibility of Firms
Eric W. Orts and N. Craig Smith
Abstract
A perennial question in business ethics concerns the extent to which business firms and organizations have moral responsibilities—or not. In philosophical terms, the question is whether organizations themselves have “moral agency.” The view that firms possess moral qualities of this kind is strongly advocated by a number of leading scholars. An opposing view maintains that only individual human beings can be said correctly to have moral and ethical responsibilities. This book brings together the strongest voices on both sides of this important debate. The contributions here illustrate the lead ... More
A perennial question in business ethics concerns the extent to which business firms and organizations have moral responsibilities—or not. In philosophical terms, the question is whether organizations themselves have “moral agency.” The view that firms possess moral qualities of this kind is strongly advocated by a number of leading scholars. An opposing view maintains that only individual human beings can be said correctly to have moral and ethical responsibilities. This book brings together the strongest voices on both sides of this important debate. The contributions here illustrate the leading arguments on each side. They also advance nuanced approaches to the issue that point the way toward new directions for future research. Although the debate is primarily a theoretical one, its outcome has great significance for practice. If a business firm is deemed to be morally compromised, for example, then its products and services may deserve to be “shunned” or boycotted. There are also significant legal consequences, and different societies currently hold different positions. In the United States, firms can be found legally culpable for immoral acts. Other countries such as Germany have refused to accept the idea that a firm itself can have moral and therefore legal culpability, focusing instead on the culpability of the individuals in firms who act wrongfully. High profile cases of ethical and legal malfeasance discussed in the book include BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill and Volkswagen’s alleged environmental fraud involving diesel-powered cars designed to avoid pollution regulations.
Keywords:
business ethics,
moral responsibility,
moral agency,
corporate criminality,
corporate social responsibility,
legal and ethical culpability,
BP,
Volkswagen
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 2017 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780198738534 |
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: April 2017 |
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198738534.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Eric W. Orts, editor
Guardsmark Professor; Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics and Management; Director, Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
N. Craig Smith, editor
Chaired Professor of Ethics and Social Responsibility, INSEAD
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